


you'll always be where i belong

by etymology



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Bisexual Clara Oswin Oswald, F/F, Female Doctor (Doctor Who), Not Canon Compliant, POV Clara Oswin Oswald, Post-Episode: 2017 Xmas Twice Upon A Time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-02-22 03:30:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13158333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/etymology/pseuds/etymology
Summary: “I’m the Doctor. Part-time saver of the universe, full-time lady of cats.”“What?”“Nice to meet you.”(Or, Clara meets the Thirteenth Doctor and falls for her all over again.)





	you'll always be where i belong

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted july 2017.

_prove to me that you still feel it / before i go start something new / no one knows what comes after this / but i've always hoped that it was you._  
—seafret, ‘breathe’

//  
  
It takes two wars, four stars dying, six weddings, and a kitten up a tree for them to meet again.  
  
Clara’s not sure how she ended up being the go-to girl for cats stuck in trees, but she’s here now, also stuck in the tree, and the kitten isn’t going to come down anytime soon unless she figures out how she can get them both down. Which, she’s not sure how she’s going to do that, because she’s been up here for almost an hour now and the closest she’s gotten to the kitten was when she had first climbed up and tried to reach it, which had earned her a scratch from the tiny black cat.  
  
“Do you need some help up there?”  
  
Well, someone was bound to notice her eventually, so that doesn’t come as a surprise. What does come as a surprise is how before Clara even has time to reply, there’s the sound of a sonic screwdriver—not the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver, she’d recognise that anywhere—and then someone groaning as they remember that sonic devices don’t work on wood and then, of course, the distinct sound of someone climbing up the tree.  
  
“You should probably not do that,” says Clara, trying her best to see who’s climbing up, and more importantly, from where.  
  
“This is harder than I remember,” says the stranger in reply.  
  
When Clara feels a tug at her dress, her first instinct is to kick down.  
  
“Ow! You got me right in the- oh, you’re fascinating. And so very pretty,” says the woman, still holding onto the branch that Clara’s settled on, and she means it so sincerely that Clara has to make sure she’s not talking to the kitten, but no, the woman’s definitely looking at her.  
  
Clara holds out her hand.  
  
“Clara Oswald, part-time getter of cats stuck in trees and full-time traveller of space, and also time,” she says, and the stranger takes her hand and pulls herself up to sit next to Clara, closer to the kitten than she is.  
  
“I’m the Doctor. Part-time saver of the universe, full-time lady of cats.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Nice to meet you.”  
  
“You’re-” says Clara, at around the same time that the woman, who is most definitely not the Doctor, turns to face the kitten and starts inching closer to it, talking to it in meows. “You’re not the Doctor.”  
  
“Sure I am,” says the woman, in between meows. “Is it because I’m blonde? I swear, you’d think that no one’s ever seen a blonde ramble off about quantum theory before, what with all the pushback I’m getting whenever I introduce myself nowadays. There’s also the misogyny, but you know, that’s more of a lifelong process than something you can unlearn in a day. Come here, kitty. There we go.”  
  
The woman turns to look at Clara, smiling, and oh god, she has such a nice smile that Clara’s already a little soft on her, especially since she’s holding a kitten who looks perfectly at ease pressed against that coat of hers.  
  
“Any plans on how to get down from here, then?”  
  
“I was getting to that when you showed up,” says Clara. The woman promptly hands her the kitten, which has Clara panicking for a second before she realises that it’s not going to scratch her again.  
  
The blonde grabs a hold of another branch—one Clara had dismissed as a viable option because it didn’t look as strong as a tree branch ought to be if she’s going to dangle from it holding a tiny kitten. This woman, however, thinks it’s perfect, and Clara looks down at the kitten as the blonde falls out of the tree, right onto her back.  
  
Clara listens as the smallest ‘ouch’ is groaned out, and then, an apology, and a black mass of material—the blonde’s coat—is thrown up in her direction. She catches it out of reflex, and almost falls down herself, which would not have been good, considering the kitten.  
  
“Put the cat in one of the pockets,” says the voice from below her, and Clara huffs. She would’ve thought of that, eventually. If her companion hadn’t buggered off to god knows where right before she’d seen the cat. “Are you all right up there, pretty girl?”  
  
“Yeah, just- give me a second,” says Clara, as she opened the pocket to make sure there wasn’t anything that could hurt the kitten in there. Instead, she found a sonic screwdriver. Not the same one he had kept—and definitely not the sonic sunglasses. This one is a matted grey, almost black, and it feels heavier than the one her Doctor used to have.  
  
Clara tucks it into a small pocket in her dress, and lets the kitten climb into the Doctor’s now sonic-free coat.  
  
“I’m gonna lower it,” says Clara.  
  
“Atta girl,” says the blonde, and Clara can feel the coat getting lighter, and then it’s pulled out of her grip again, and this time, she does fall.  
  
The thing about gravity on this planet isn’t that it doesn’t care about humiliating her—Clara  _wishes_  it didn’t care—but rather the fact that it goes out of its way to do so. Which is how she ends up with her face inches from the blonde’s, blinking down at her.  
  
“You okay?” asks the blonde, and Clara looks down at her, trying to remember why there are alarm bells going off in her head other than the woman is really,  _really_  attractive and Clara is really, really bi.  
  
That’s when there’s a meow, and a tiny furry thing runs past them, and the blonde’s eyes widen in panic. She pushes Clara off of her, tripping on her own two feet in an attempt to follow the kitten, yelling something about a missing matriarch.  
  
“You forgot your-” starts Clara, but it’s too late, because the blonde’s already disappeared, and Clara’s left on the floor, holding onto the coat, trying to figure out what the hell had just happened.  
  
//  
  
Exactly thirteen days later, right on the dot—not that Clara’s  _counting_  or anything—Clara opens the door to the diner only to find the door of a TARDIS she used to be much more familiar with, once upon a time. She’s about to knock, when the blonde from before opens the door, and says, “You stole my coat, pretty girl.”  
  
“I did no such thing,” replies Clara, affronted. The woman raises an eyebrow, so Clara says, “You forgot it and I held onto it for you because you were obviously too busy chasing after cats.”  
  
“Well, technically she’s not a cat any more,” says the Doctor, and sneaks around Clara to get into the diner. Clara’s been keeping the coat on the coat rack, just in case, and the Doctor walks towards it now, picks it out from the others and slips it right back on. Clara tries to ignore the way that the coat fits her, makes her look so very incredibly young. “This is a TARDIS, but you are not a Time Lord.”  
  
“Neither are you,” says Clara. “Speaking of which, when did that happen?”  
  
“Couple of days ago,” says the doctor, going under the counter to get to the other side. “I think. It might’ve been months ago, I’m not good at the whole Time thing.”  
  
“You’re.. a time traveller.”  
  
“Well, yes,” she says, messing with the dials. Clara can tell she’s just looking for something to do with her hands. “Which is why I’m not so good at keeping track of it.”  
  
“That would make sense to you,” mutters Clara, pulling up the counter and coming around to watch the Doctor try to get a Coke out of an ice cream machine.  
  
“Have we met before?” asks the Doctor, and Clara turns to face her, keeping her expression blank.  
  
“Yeah, a couple of days ago,” says Clara. She pulls out a cone, and presses the button, wrist working to shape it into the perfect ice cream. “You really ought to work on that keeping track of time thing of yours, you know. It comes in handy.”  
  
“No, I mean, before that. Before this face, you’re.. familiar to me, but I can’t figure out where I’ve met you before. When I’ve met you before.”  
  
“Ice cream?” she offers, and the Doctor looks down at it, takes it and, after poking it with her finger and licking it for some reason other than to make Clara squirm, bites into it, then goes back to gazing at Clara with a frown, as if it’s Clara’s fault that she can’t figure out where she knows her from, which, it kind of is.  
  
“Is this from Earth? This is from Earth, isn’t it?”  
  
“Yeah, sort of,” replies Clara, trying to figure out if it counts if she bought it from a human who has never actually been to Earth. “Are you travelling alone again?”  
  
“Oh, no, I’ve got loads of- er, people,” says the Doctor, turning back to the counter, grabbing the rainbow sprinkles. “There was Bill, she was amazing. Almost died on me a couple of times, but she’s quite all right now. Ran off with the love of her life. Then there was Nardole, but he was just making sure I stayed on Earth because of a thing. Time Lord business, awfully dull. It’s fine now. Everyone’s okay.”  
  
“Are  _you_  okay, Doctor?”  
  
“Hm?” she asks, as she puts the sprinkles back, after having covered her ice cream with them. “Oh, yes, I’m fantastic. Haven’t felt this good in centuries. Always nice, regenerating. Except for the dying part, that’s not nice. But the new body stuff is nice. You know what’s also nice? Knowing things. And I want to know why you have a TARDIS when you’re not a Time Lord.”  
  
“I stole it,” says Clara.  
  
“Oh, me too. Actually, she might have stolen me, not sure, but either way: theft!” The Doctor points at the ice cream. “This is really good, what is it?”  
  
“Chocolate,” says Clara.  
  
“I like chocolate,” the Doctor says, simply. The way she moves her face to speak is so damn attractive that Clara is having trouble focusing on her words, and even though there’s something about her that Clara can’t yet place, she’s still enamoured. “And you. I like you, too. Why do you have no pulse?”  
  
“Doctor,” says Clara, in a voice she’s used before, in a voice that she’s spoken to the Doctor in before. The blonde reacts to it, inches closer to her, and Clara’s hands are toying with the end of her dress shirt before she can even stop herself. Habit, is what she tells herself.  
  
“Why wouldn’t you have a pulse, unless-”  
  
Clara presses her palm against the Doctor’s waist. “Doctor, please don’t.”  
  
“You’re her, aren’t you,” says the Doctor, and there’s a look in her eyes that Clara can recognise, because she has fallen in love with those eyes before, and- “You’re my Clara.”  
  
Clara fists the edge of the Doctor’s shirt at that, trying to ignore how her taut her stomach feels against her hand.  
  
“Why do I keep running into you?” asks the Doctor, and it’s so reminiscent of the way she had tried to figure out who Clara was, two faces back, that Clara’s having a hard time breathing. Not that she needs to any more. “I’m not supposed to be running into you, am I?”  
  
“I’ve tried to keep my distance,” says Clara, because she has, and she would have been able to avoid her still, if she had known about the regeneration, but she hadn’t, and so this is her current predicament. “You have no idea how small the universe is, Doctor.”  
  
“Of course I do,” says the Doctor, brows knit.  
  
“You forgot me,” says Clara, softly. She avoids the other woman’s gaze, looks at anything else— her mouth, the set of her jaw, the collar of her shirt. Anything but those eyes, again. “There’s.. rules, and you’re not supposed to be running into me, so I’ve made sure to keep my distance because the alternative was this, and.. I can’t take you not knowing me.”  
  
“Remind me,” says the Doctor, without hesitation. Clara looks up at her, a smile along the curve of her lips. “Make me remember you, Clara Oswald.”  
  
“I don’t think I can,” she admits.  
  
“I doubt that very much,” the blonde replies, and then frowns. “My ice cream’s melting.”  
  
“Come here,” says Clara, and she grabs the Doctor’s wrist and leads them both to the sink, washing off the mess of melted chocolate ice cream and rainbow sprinkles on the blonde’s hand.  
  
Clara tugs the sleeve of her coat up when she notices that it had dripped down into the Doctor’s sleeve as they had spoken, and shakes her head fondly at how distracted the Doctor is, still. How she ignores the unimportant things.  
  
The Doctor says nothing throughout the entire thing, but watches as Clara disposes of the melted ice cream and tries to wash the stain out of the material.  
  
“This isn’t going to come out,” says Clara, when she’s all but given up on it ever returning to the crisp white it had been before. “You have got to have some kind of intergalactic laundry on your speed dial because that’s pretty much the best I can do, I’m afraid.”  
  
There’s a comfortable kind of silence that Clara remembers, back when she used to call another TARDIS her home, the one parked outside the diner, to be specific, and they fall into it then.  
  
“Do you really want to remember me?” she asks her, because it’s been eating at her ever since the Doctor asked her to make her remember, and Clara isn’t about to let her go, not again.  
  
“Clara,” says the Doctor, right before Clara breathes in, cups the back of the blonde’s neck, and presses her mouth to hers. The Doctor swallows every single thing she was about to say, because Clara is a very good kisser, thank you very much, and if the Doctor thinks that she’s going to be capable of stringing a sentence together while Clara’s tongue is in her mouth, then she’s got another thing coming.  
  
The Doctor’s movements are awkward and remind Clara far too much of her teenage years, but she wouldn’t trade this woman for anything, Clara decides, right then and there.  
  
It takes her ten seconds to decide that she should probably drag the Doctor into her bedroom before someone actually walks into the diner, and three minutes to remember where exactly her bedroom even is within the ship. She spends hours getting acquainted with the Doctor’s body; fingers tracing patterns where her mouth can’t bruise.  
  
Clara wakes up to cold sheets, and a lengthy note explaining that there was a Very Important Thing that the Doctor just had to take care of before she forgot and some planet descended into chaos. Clara finds that all too charming to be upset about being left alone the morning after, but she decides that she will have to get the blonde to make up for it when she figures out that Clara’s got her sonic screwdriver and comes back for it.

//


End file.
